


He Remembers

by Medie



Category: Smallville
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-13
Updated: 2010-02-13
Packaged: 2017-10-07 05:49:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/62035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie/pseuds/Medie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the day you bury a parent...it's not hard to forget. it's hard to remember.</p>
            </blockquote>





	He Remembers

**Author's Note:**

> Some of the events Whitney details in the story really happened. To me that is. Now what ones they are? I'm not telling. But, there are a lot of places where the events and the emotions are most certainly drawn from actual experience.

Two years and still, it's a blur. The funeral, the grave side service, the people at the house...all a blur.

He remembers someone, an old friend of his dad's, giving the eulogy. He can recall being okay, comforting his mom, until he'd looked up to hear the older man address him. Saying, "He was so proud of you, Whitney." He'd wept then.

He remembers he didn't care who saw.

He remembers people being there, around them, but the faces are mostly a blur. He knows more than remembers that Lana was there. But he can remember some: Chloe Sullivan's wan, pinched features stands out starkly, Clark Kent's face wearing a strange mixture of defeat, helplessness and empathy which confused him – not like Clark could have done anything so why should he have looked like that?

He remembers Pete Ross being there too. Pete, a surprisingly solid presence for most of the day. Funny, he hadn't really seen who the real friends were until that day. When jokes and football couldn't help. When all that was, was silence.

He remembers, afterward, Pete showing up with Chloe and Clark at his side and just...helping.

He remembers Chloe staying with his mom when Lana had to go back to the Talon, and hearing his mom talk about 'that lovely Chloe' for weeks on end afterward.

He remembers Pete and Clark making him leave the house, the three of them ending up at a basketball court. There, ostensibly, to shoot hoops but doing little more than tossing the ball around while they talked about nothing.

He remembers very little of some things, yet others he recalls with aching clarity. Little fragments, moments frozen out of time. Moments like the smile on his mother's face when Pete turned the infamous Ross charm on her full force. Like the hug Chloe gave him, her uncharacteristic silence as he'd tried to thank her in stumbling sentences that hadn't made much sense. An awkward attempt to explain how important everything she, Pete, and Clark, had done was to him. He recalls finishing, uncomfortable and frustrated with his own inability to convey his gratitude and just looking at her morosely.

He remembers Chloe being typically Chloe. Smiling a soft smile, she hugged him tight and murmured how she understood anyway. Reporters, after all, didn't need to hear words to understand a message.

He remembers Clark and his dad, offering sincere sympathy. The expression on Jonathan Kent's eyes when he'd talked to them, telling them to call if they needed anything and knowing he meant it. Something which had struck deeper than any of the flowery condolences on the sympathy cards which littered the Fordman home. Something which actually helped.

He remembers the way Martha had embraced his mother, wiping away her tears with lightly calloused hands and saying something he couldn't make out. Whatever it was, whatever she'd said, all he knew was his mom...his mom had been...better because of it. He couldn't describe it any clearer than that. She just had been. It was something he would probably always be grateful to Mrs. Kent for. Could never thank her enough for.

He remembers so many things about that day, some he wishes he could forget just as he forgets so many things that he wishes he could remember. But, he knows, if in order to keep the pain under control, to keep it bearable, he has to sacrifice a few good moments to a blurred memory...he'll do it.

It's something he can live with.


End file.
